Monthly Archives: April 2011

While I con­tinue to mas­sage drafts of future posts, now seems like the per­fect time to dis­cuss some great books about impro­vi­sa­tional the­ater. After my Core Con­ver­sa­tion at SXSW, a few peo­ple approached me look­ing for some book titles. These are the three begin­ning texts I rec­om­mended: Impro by Keith John­stone — I started with […]

When­ever I lead a rehearsal for one of my improv troupes, there’s a great sto­ry­telling exer­cise I like to include. Pri­mal Truths orig­i­nates from Carol Hazenfield’s Act­ing on Impulse, which is a won­der­ful book for impro­vis­ers, direc­tors and teach­ers. The pur­pose of [Pri­mal Truths] is two-fold: 1) to let play­ers note how it feels when […]

Impro­vi­sa­tional the­ater classes pro­vide a great way to enhance your cre­ative side. Unsur­pris­ingly, forc­ing one­self to make up con­tent with­out prior plan­ning will lead to some unex­pected results. It might appear chal­leng­ing to pull ideas out of thin air, but time spent onstage will prove it is eas­ier than most think. In Keith John­stone’s Impro, Johnstone […]

The sim­plest con­cept to boil down from an improv class and share with the out­side world is the idea of “yes, and”. It’s a pow­er­ful tool that lies at the core of every good impro­vised scene and col­lab­o­ra­tive cre­ative process. “Yes” rep­re­sents the accep­tance of another person’s offer. One impro­viser might begin a scene with […]

The most impor­tant les­son any­one can learn in a novice improv class is this: do not fear fail­ure. When a per­son is afraid of fail­ure, he/she has a strong ten­dency to avoid tak­ing risks. In impro­vi­sa­tional the­ater and in life, risks are often key to sub­stan­tial growth and suc­cess. Suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies like Google and Apple […]

I first reg­is­tered this web­site in Novem­ber 2005. Over time, it tran­si­tioned into a rel­a­tively generic per­sonal blog. I chron­i­cled my taste in music and tele­vi­sion shows (includ­ing spec­u­la­tion about the fate of Arrested Devel­op­ment), among other things. The old blog was an inter­est­ing out­let, but it lacked focus and grew rel­a­tively inac­tive over the […]